The “gallery of art”explains that the beauty and harmony are produced by virtue of classical ruins, people in classical dress having the area around Rome as their background.

Having lost his parents in his early teens Claude went to Rome where he trained as an artist under the direction of Agostini Tassi. After returning briefly to France he settled finally in Rome. He had connections with Poussin.

His first dated work is 1629: “Landscape with cattle and peasants”.

He uses both light and aerial perspective to produce depth in his paintings.

The web gallery of art goes onto describe the composition of Lorrain’s paintings: tall trees on one side,smaller trees and,or ruins further back on the other side,figures in classical dress in the foreground:

Lorrain places figures in the near foreground. They are about one sixth the height of the total canvas, so in relation to his trees, quite small but they are colourful, well lit and invariably doing something of interest. all of which catch the eye. Although very close to the bottom of the canvas they are firmly in the landscape being separated from the viewer by a piece of land which tends also to be catching the light.The figures are in open space which is either framed or immediately backed, at least on one side, by dark looming trees which reach from a position around the heads of the figures to the very top of the canvas and so occupy about two thirds of the canvas length. A stretch of glowing water contrastingly light in colour originates close to the figures and leads into the distance, taking the eye back to softly painted (in colour and blurredness) to buildings which are classical or ruined in nature. The size of these buildings varies with whether they are to be used to frame the image and “assist” the trees. Beyond the ruins are the soft features of hills or mountains catching the light in pale shades of gold or purple. The sky crowns all, glowing in soft colours,white,pinks,yellows and blues and crossed by the contrasting dark forms of the trees. The image is complex and clearly divided into fore mid and back ground areas, but also into light and dark, soft and harsh, and activity and peace, the softness of the image in its reducing colour less marked forms and its use of less stringent tone increases as the eye moves from foreground to background.

Turner How he divides his work into foreground, midground and background

Turner was born more than a century after Poussin in 1775, in the reign of George 111 (died 1820)in England, Louis XVI th in France and 3 years before the French revolution and the rise of Napoleon, to be followed in 1793 by Britain’s war with France.

He was twenty five years older than Dickens (born in 1812). he illustrated Walter Scott’s (1771-1832) novels of romantic Scottish heroes, and was contemporary with Byron (1788-1824), and Wordsworth(1770-1850), and in later years with Keats (1795-1821) and Shelley 1792-1822 an and was about thirty years older than the Bronte sisters.

This era in England blossomed with Romantic literature and art-perhaps by virtue of the greater freedom (by virtue of insutrialisation and scientific discovery) and education given to the “common man”.

The early 19th century saw the rise of indutrialisation in Britain, after the development of the spinning Jenny by Arkwright. In the 1790s the well paid and respected weaver was overtaken by mechanisation and became one of many labourers (including children) in the cotton factories. Luddite rebellions broke out against automated machinery. England was changing from rural to industrial with the smoke filling Northern towns.

For the first 8 years of Turner’s life, England was fighting America which gained its independence in 1783. The early 19th century was marked by the strong antislavery movements and eventual abolition of the slave trade (in 1807 in England) between Africa and America and by the commencement of deportation to Australia.

Turner’s England was changing from the rural scenes of Lorrain’s to smoke filled skies, from rural life to industry and travel to the Americas or Australia, from importation of slaves to their recognition as suffering human beings and from a fear of revolution against the monarchy.

Turner died in 1851.

He saw the beginning of photography 1839 by Daguerre,

He was a contemporary of David, in France (born 1748) of Goya in Spain ( born 1746)-both of whom painted pictures in relation to wars and revolutions, as France and Spain fought, and of Blake in England (1757-1827) ,Constable (1776-1837) and Thomas Girtin (1775-1802) (his personal friend of the same age).

This swirling image is similar to the more abstract swirls of light and dark seen in Turner’s pictures.

Turner was born in London and kept his Cockney accent all his life. He entered the Royal Academy schools, worked with Girtin colouring prints with watercolours (ref: sourced on line (July 2013)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Girtin) ,Thomas Malton, studying architecture. Because of surrounding unrest in the world he travelled in England a lot during his early professional years skecthing (on the spot) during the summers and painting in his studio in the winters. sourced on line (July 2013) from ref http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/joseph-mallord-william-turner-558

This painting by Turner from 1798 reflects Claude Lorrain. Two animated figures stand centre front about one eighth the way up the canvas,they are depicted in clear strokes in bright white and a hint of red which stand out against the dark surroundings. Their foreground is light (but not as light as the sky and ruins in the far background) and leads the eye to them.The figures are framed on the left by light rocks and on the right by dark rocks which curve inwards again leading the eye to the figures.Another figure stands on the right,in colours and tones which prevent his differentiation (except by a line of light down his left side) from the rocks. The right side of the painting remains a dark frame as the trees rise dark against the golden sky. The right side also acts as a frame where a ruined castle appears as a blurred light orangey image with similar coloured hills behind. The central stretch of water darkens as it takes the eye to the horizon where soft hints of browns indicate hills and another fortress, an image produced by touches of lightly contrasting tones. The sky is a melange of golden and white light on the right behind the dark tree fading to blues and lilacs above the pale orange hills on the left. The painting could be divided into strips of light and dark horizontally and a dark right side, light left. The foreground is sharp and contrasting, the background soft and blurry and harmonious. There is a triangular form to the composition, produced by the lake with the figures at his apex.

These images (above) are paintings and they have much more leeway in colour and texture than sketches which are limited by the “size” of the implements and the colours-or are they? Could drawings be as complex as paintings?

Some of Turner’s sketches

Many of his sketches use paint (watercolour). Is watercolour a drawing medium? What is the difference between drawing and painting?

This watercolour sketch: has a foreground of clear light white and light green water with hints of grey blue-so the foreground is pure light. The middle ground starts with a collection of boats on the right of the image whose brown yellow bows and dark but very finely painted masts are quite “sharp (in photographic terms ) against the softer faded buildings behind. Here the light water reflects the boats and buildings by turning a soft grey and pink grey colour. Behind the boats are buildings of a dome and a tower to the left of which which the line of boats take the eye diagonally from the right. Without them the skecth would consist of horizontal and vertical lines and be less appealing to the eye. The far middle distance buildings in front of the tower and dome have hints of pale orange which is reflected in the sky whose pale yellowy oranges and greens contrast the foreground water. The buildings have hints of small darker windows and very light toned grey roofs and the tone of these middle distance tower and dome is mid way between thew far strip of land and the dark of the masts of the boats. A patch of yellowy sand stretches out in the middle of the picture, reflecting the colour of the foreground boats but less intense. Here sit several small boats painted with a touch of light grey and no detail. I the far distance is a hint of a further strip of land, a tower and buildings. There is no distinct colour in this part of the painting, although the yellowy of the sky at this point seems to permeate the soft grey image. The whole image rides on the horizontal lower golden section with almost two thirds of the picture given over to sky and the other third to the foreground water. The image emanates peace and soft mist and silence.

Although this is a quick and rough sketch it reflects mid and foreground representation in pencil (or charcoal) -the foreground sits in the lower third of the picture is drawn in denser harder pencil marks, strong hatches or zig zags, close together and a slightly detailed (compared to the background) representation of what appears to be a boat and figure. Above this on the page, just below the middle are less intense marks-almost one continous line with no shading, no tone and no detail -just the outlines of what must be buildings. There are no sky details.

The foreground is of bushes, deciduous trees and on the right an area of rock juts into the picture. The foreground is light with diagonal, quite well spaced hatching (possible underlying brown watercolour) and vertical more intense spaced hatching perhaps indicating tree trunks. The rock on the right is left pale with some outline and squiggley lines of detail. To accentuate this rock the trees behind in the foremiddle distance are drawn in an intensly deep tone, possible chalk, with diagonal hatching and again deeper hints of vertical tree trunks. To the left, this tone increases as the evergreen forest is depicted in intense diagonal and vertical short strokes. This curved forested hillside sits before the middle ground which to accentuate the forest is once again light, patches of pale brown overlaid with soft vertical and diagonal hatching. There is a patch of water -pale undrawn area between the abutting hills in the lower centre of the picture and behind that an area of brown stained paper overlaid with very soft vertical lines of trees and ? block shading with chalk leads us up to the softly drawn mountain top where only hints of pencil line and hatching help they eye to make out the details.

I love this busy picture with horizontal and diagonal hatching, intense at the lower edges and on parts of the rocks at the front, with hints of white chalk as the light reflects off the water. The hatching of the rocks in the background appears to be done with a harder pencil with less tonal “capacity” than the foreground.

Although not suggested in the research point, I was interested to know more of Poussin.

Poussin was six years older than his fellow Frenchman Lorraine, born in 1594 in Normandy, living in Paris and then settling like Lorraine, in Rome. Elizabeth was queen in England

His work reflects Titian and Raphael. He had an interest in Roman myth and history. He was patronised by Cardinal Richelieu and sketched with Claude Lorrain becoming interested in depicting the countryside around Rome in a romantic and classical manner. Generally his paintings sewem to concentrate on the figures which use the landscape as a backdrop, rather than with Lorrain’s pictures which use the figures as an area of interest within the landscape.

here his figures so dominate the fore and mid ground that only hints of a rural background can be seen in comparison to the greater view of the countryside itself as depicted by Lorrain. Most of his pictures seem to have this balance although there are some in which the countryside fore, mid and background are a “stage set” for his figures and their story:

Poussin’s large and sensuous or over dramatic figures do not appeal to me –and fall within the realms of the art of the sistine chapel which is also far too full of opulence and perfection.

In a recent visit to Gawthorpe hall, we were informed that a wall was built in a crooked manner as no-one could be perfect -that was only for God, and although such religious sentiments are not my reason, I do prefer the slightly imperfect or rough to these images of excessive perfection. Turner is certainly more to my liking giving vent to a more purtanical feeling in the countryside.